The FKA twigs “Cellophane” music video is nominated for 3 VMAs!

It’s close to being that time of the year again! On Monday, August 26, MTV’s 2019 Video Music Awards (also known as the VMAs) will take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, and the entire team here at HIP is on the edge of their seats in anticipation for this star-studded and monumental event. We always love watching this award show, and this year we’re ecstatic over an incredible client of ours that’s been nominated for multiple awards: FKA twigs!

That’s right: FKA twigs’ music video for “Cellophane” has recently been nominated for THREE awards at this year’s VMA’s, and we couldn’t be prouder! Earlier in the year when we first encountered the video, we knew that it was going to be a bold and powerful move in her career. With the help of director Andrew Thomas Huang, a creative mind who has worked with other cutting-edge experimental artists such as Radiohead, the 31-year old South London singer was able to create a skillfully choreographed pole performance that is further accented by the smooth embrace of her soprano voice coupled with a touching, melancholic piano instrumental. FKA twigs not only abolishes the preconceived notions that our society typically has toward pole-dancing but does so in a manner that displays the truly emotive nature of the art form and tells a heartfelt, compelling story.

FKA twigs first enters the video standing behind a curtain with an audience on the other side, waiting patiently for her to perform. She throws off a large, hooded winter coat along with some gold-tinted sunglasses and breaks through the cloth barrier to reveal herself to the already applauding crowd. Wearing a silken, bell-bottomed pair of pants that gives off a Donna Summer-esque disco energy, she quickly pulls a string to drop the accessory and steps slowly toward her pole in bejeweled dancer apparel and some of the tallest stiletto heels a person can ever witness. What follows after her glamorous entrance is a breathtaking aerial pole-dance display that takes her to an unbelievably towering height where she faces a mystical, android-like flying beast and soon descends rapidly down into a dark and muddy cavern. As she lands in this deep abyss, masked and seemingly possessed women crawl over to the now-fallen FKA twigs and paint her body with the clay-ish mud that surrounds her. The video ends with a close-up of her holding her muddy self and letting out short gasps of her breath to the viewer.

We are so happy to see a great artist like FKA twigs get the recognition she deserves and hope that she comes back from the VMAs with a couple of well-deserved trophies. FKA twigs is nominated in 3 categories that include Best Choreography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Direction. “Cellophane” is an amazing video that defies the expectations that music fans have toward videos and will definitely be getting the votes of everyone on the HIP Video Promo team.

Written by HIP intern, Bryan Olivera.